This article presents the findings of a study exploring students’ reports of their engagement with online learning and assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi higher education. Students shared perspectives on Twitter about their engagement, and research data was collected from their tweets posted between March and May 2020. A total of 124,810 tweets were analysed using MAXQDA quantitative and qualitative tools. The findings indicate that students’ engagement with learning and assessment was affected by the challenges of the sudden shift in learning mode and alterations in assessment methods. Open communication between students and faculty are essential for ensuring shared understanding and acceptance. Additionally, departmental support and mediating between students and faculty members is necessary and should be a priority in cases where communication is lacking. Results are discussed in relation to current literature, research implications, and future directions.

This study determines the assessment practices used by teaching staff in Saudi universities, explores how these assessment practices have changed during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, and investigates how teaching staffs’ priorities and preferences for education on assessment during the pandemic were shaped. To support professional development, the study also aims to raise teaching staffs’ awareness of assessment practices. Teaching staff in Saudi universities were invited to complete the Approaches to Classroom Inventory survey. The results showed that the most highly endorsed practices included giving feedback, linking assessments to learning objectives and learning outcomes, using scoring guides, and monitoring and revising assessment approaches. The least endorsed practices included mapping summative assessment to curriculum expectations, responding to the cultural and linguistic diversity of students, and accommodating students with special needs/exceptionalities in assessments. Further, during the pandemic, formative assessments were rarely used. Although faculty members from various colleges and fields of specialty showed similar patterns in endorsing assessment practices, they differed in their preferences and needs for assessment education.

In an era where conditions for education are rapidly changing globally, online assessment presents several opportunities as well as challenges in the higher education landscape. The forceful transition from face-to-face to online assessments, as part of the emergency implementation of online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has affected teaching, learning, and assessment experiences worldwide. This study explores how faculty members in Saudi universities secured their online assessment during phase one of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research aims were: 1) identifying faculty assessment practices before the onset of COVID-19 and comparing these with practices during the pandemic, and 2) identifying the major challenges faced by the faculty members of the study in securing their online assessment to ensure that academic integrity and assessment standards remained intact. Data were collected from seven university professors through a self-reporting survey, followed by semi-structured interviews. The faculty members found the pandemic period to be the best time to change their assessment methods, and incorporate innovative ideas that conformed to both their own beliefs and students’ needs. The factors that influenced the faculty’s assessment alterations were their personal beliefs and learnings from others’ experiences, in addition to the guidelines issued by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Education. The results of this study have implications for the development of post-COVID-19 assessment practices and professional development priorities.

Assessment approaches including assessment purposes, assessment processes, fairness, and measurement theory, and English teachers’ professional development needs remain underexplored in the Middle East and North Africa regions. This study provided empirical evidence on English language teachers approaches in the Saudi higher education context. A survey was used to examine the teachers’ current approaches to classroom assessment. A total of 287 subjects (191 women and 94 men) participated in the survey. The results revealed that both the male and female participants valued and endorsed assessments alike. However, female participants were found to value assessment purposes more than their male counterparts. Fairness in assessment approaches was the least valued item in teachers’ identified assessment approaches. Experienced teachers who identified themselves as competent in their role valued assessment fairness and measurement theory more than novice teachers. The present work broadens our knowledge on teachers’ assessment approaches in relation to gender, career stage, and academic position, which support interested researchers and policy-makers in decision-making regarding designing professional development programs.

No abstract